Back-to-RuleWe must address behavior and not technology

Parent: Are you going to wear your new hat today?Child: No because fifth graders are not allowed to wear hats to schoolParent: Why can’t fifth graders wear hats?School administrator: Because sixth graders can’t wear hatsParent: OK, now I understand better. May I ask, “why can’t sixth graders wear hats?”School administrator: Gangs!Parent: Do we have gang problems?School administrator: No, because we don’t let sixth graders wear hats.

The preceding dialogue (experienced by my own family) typifies the wacky rule making increasingly found in American schools. Back-to-school time often coincides with the arbitrary banning of toys, apparel and assorted nick-knacks from our classrooms and playgrounds. It seems as if instinct takes over whenever administrators encounter something kids care about. The reflexive impulse is to forbid these objects from the educational environment.

There are several reasons for taking a deep breath and exercising caution before enforcing the next pog embargo.

We risk alienating children from school and missing potential curriculum connections.

As the world becomes more complex, violent and distinct from the life of the school, educators should look for opportunities to establish closer relationships with their students. Arbitrarily banning objects embraced by children needlessly erects barriers between teachers and students, school and the real-world. Baseball cards may be used to explore powerful ideas in probability, statistics, graphing, sorting and geography. Pogs, and Pokemon cards are excellent manipulatives for sorting, pattern recognition. Virtual pets could be used to explore life cycles, emotions and causal relationships. Hotwheels cars may be used in physics experiments. Even the social equity issues often used to justify prohibition may be explored when children feel that their teachers respect their world. Positive relationships with caring adults will outlast the latest fad.

It’s not good to be a hypocrite

Do unto others as we would have done onto us. If as Seymour Papert asserts, “laptops are today’s prime instrument for intellectual work,” then we should not forbid kids from access to non-violent tools so important to our own work. One school that requires every student to own a laptop banned tamagotchis (handheld programmable virtual pets) from school by enforcing their policy prohibiting electronic devices on campus.

You just can’t keep up

As media spin-offs, high-tech devices and toys proliferate, it will be impossible for school leaders to keep up with all of them in order to enforce subsequent bans. High-tech devices allowed today may integrate prohibited technologies in the future. Convergence will bring increasing power to kids and headaches for administrators. What happens when the book bag contains a laptop, the laptop contains a cell phone or sneakers contain a laptop and a cell phone?

New learning technologies will emerge

Laptops, programmable toys and handheld devices are becoming more affordable, powerful and therefore ubiquitous. Disallowing such devices at school will impoverish the learning environment. While Mr. Dette’s fondness for nostalgia would earn us extra credit for using a slide rule in his physical science class, he never punished us for using a calculator.

This year schools from coast-to-coast are banning Palm and similar handheld computers. An article in Wired News quotes Alan Warhaftig, a coordinator of the nonprofit organization Learning in the Real World (an organization critical of digital technology in education).

“I know when I’m in a faculty meeting that is boring me to tears, I will read The New York Times on AvantGo and look like I’m (concentrating) on the meeting,” said Warhaftig. I say, “duh?” Imagine if kids could vote with their feet. Would classrooms begin to be more reflective of their needs?

Mr. Warhaftig goes on to reveal his belief in the supremacy of the school over the learner when he went on to say, “The magic in the classroom is getting kids to concentrate.”[i]

American educators don’t hold the patent on stupidity. While on a recent working tour of Australia I read a newspaper article announcing that the Western Australia (state) Principals Association was urging a ban on Harry Potter trading cards BEFORE THEY ARE RELEASED. Why even wait to see if kids like the things, let’s ban them just in case!

Some technologies make our students and staff safer

Cell phones are perhaps the most often banned legal devices in American schools. Aside from the obvious convenience they afford, cellular phones have become lifesaving tools. In both Columbine and the terrible terrorist strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, cell phones preserved life, called for help or offered comfort for family members. My childrens’ high school has unilaterally banned cell phones from the campus as have many schools across the country.

I adamantly believe that a school has no right whatsoever to jeopardize the safety of my daughter who is forced to wander a dark locked campus at 10:30 PM after drama practice. The payphones and vending machines are often more secure then the children. As a parent, it is I who should have the right to locate my child and have her call for help in case of an emergency.

Reducing classroom distractions is often cited as the rationale for this rule, but this is nonsense. If you walk into Carnegie Hall or an airplane, a polite adult asks that you please turn off your phone for the comfort or safety of those around you. Why can’t teachers do the same?

If a student disrupts the learning environment then that action should be punished in the same way we address spitballs, note passing or talking in class. It is irrational to have different rules for infractions involving electronic devices. We must address behavior, not technology. This approach will make our schools more caring, relevant, productive and secure. Our kids deserve nothing less.

This time of year, the “news” is full of heartwarming back-to-school tales of good citizens buying school supplies for needy classrooms. Pop-music footnotes, Katy Perry and Pharrell the Plagiarist have both engaged in selfless acts of corporate shilling philanthropy shameless publicity to help students get school supplies. Donors Choose has created a social media platform where teachers can beg crowdfund for crayons and Kleenex. (Read my article about Donors Choose)

Ain’t it swell that school supply supplying is bigger and better than ever?

HELL NO!

I will not help teachers commit suicide by supporting these feel good attempts to turn basic public school funding into an act of charity. Each time educators normalize deprivation and substitute charity as social justice withheld, they will find themselves with fewer classroom resources. Such actions also spurn greater public school privatization and devaluing of teachers.

But, but, but, but, but… teachers spend a fortune on classroom supplies that their students need. Right, I get it. I do too. I spent $1,000 the first month I taught 4th grade. That’s not the point.

First of all, teachers should be able to deduct those costs off their income taxes. Second, public schools should be adequately funded. Third, teachers should stop contributing to consumerism and ask what their kids really need.

Yes, I’m going there. Every time a teacher requires 4 of these, 3 of those… a specific brand of pen, or an official notebook they contribute to needless family strife and exacerbate inequality.

When you require a Trapper Keeper (the Volvo of notebooks) or ban the Trapper Keeper (the three-hole punched incubus), you do not “teach organizational skills” as much as you teach compliance, reinforce prehistoric educational practices, and place a needless financial strain on your students’ families. It’s a freakin’ notebook for God’s sake. If a teacher is concerned with enforcing whether a student writes on one of both sides of a paper, or cares about the brand or color of their notebook, they should seek professional help.

Parents should stop worrying about this nonsense and expect public schools to be adequately funded and stocked with necessary supples – as is required by law and practice.

We are the richest nation in the history of the world. We can afford a cello and laptop for every child. It is a sin to beg for pencils.

So, let’s review. I salute the folks who wish to contribute to public education. Volunteering, contributing to organizations like Access Books, bring a performance to school, or pay for things kids might love are a much better idea. Every time a school wastes a second fundraising for basic supplies, a billionaire replaces a teacher with a YouTube video

The following videos are a good representation of my work as a conference keynote speaker and educational consultant. The production values vary, but my emphasis on creating more productive contexts for learning remains in focus.

For information on bringing Dr. Stager to your conference, school or district, click here.

I cannot believe that for the third straight year, a piece of garbage masquerading as education “research” is once again being passed around like social media dysentery. Worst of all, well-meaning, yet ultimately gullible educators seem compelled to “debate” such nonsense. Since teachers are terminally nice and all dissent is viewed as defect, it doesn’t take much for people to find the silver lining in this bag of manure.

I hate sharing this article with you because it makes me feel like a hypocrite, but I hope readers will consider not considering such baloney in the future.

They have the audacity to call this child abuse a “theory.” Never mind the scientific standards required for a crackpot idea to rise to the level of a theory..

Learning is apparently equated with being able to regurgitate facts and propaganda on command.

Kindergartners should take ANY tests, let alone standardized ones.

The classroom is a factory where efficiency must squelch wonder, whimsy, thinking, or even daydreaming.

The purpose of kindergarten or any grade is to be taught.

Learning is the direct result of having been taught.

Medical science should be ignored. Children need to cast their eyes as far as possible, as often as possible for healthy vision development.

Racism is OK. No affluent white parent would tolerate their young children spending seven hours each day in a prison cell pretending to be a classroom.

There is no role for beauty in education. There is no place for celebrating the creativity, ingenuity, and personal expression of children.

Learning is to be “distraction free.” Schools are to be antisocial. Knowledge is not socially constructed.

Any kid has ever read a poster to “reinforce learning they can be useful to helping students retain.” (that quote was a comment from a teacher justifying the practice online)

Kindergartners can or should read any signs.

NBC doesn’t hate public education.

At the recent Constructing Modern Knowledge institute, Carla Rinaldi, President of Reggio Children (largely considered one of the world’s wisest educators) said that we need to learn AS A GROUP, not in a group.

How about a world in which teachers behave as each child’s colleague and collaborator? What if you assumed that everyone (kid and teacher alike) want to be in the classroom together? What if you delighted in the company of children?

Educators should really think before sharing such mean-spirited anti-child crap. Some ideas are so demonstrably vile and stupid that they are hardly worthy of “debate.”